Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

1. Introduction ⇫ ¶

Cameroon Pidgin English, by some linguists referred to as Kamtok (literally ‘Cam(eroon) talk’), is spoken in the Republic of Cameroon, West Africa, and in many diaspora communities, e.g. in France, the UK, Germany, the USA, and South Africa. The number of speakers is difficult to determine as it is spoken by different people with varying degrees of competence: These range from L1 speakers and fluent L2 speakers to people who use it only sporadically as a rudimentary language and ad hoc means of communication in trade situations.

Cameroon is one of the most linguistically diverse countries on the African continent. In addition to the two official languages, French and English, there are approximately 280 indigenous languages spoken at the local level, out of which 7 or 8 as well as Cameroon Pidgin English have attained the status of a regional lingua franca.

Most urban centres show a great multilingual and multicultural complexity, which has produced a highly mixed code, composed of French, English, Pidgin, and various local indigenous languages. This code is referred to as Camfranglais, and it has become a language of solidarity and identity for urban francophone youths, comparable to what Cameroon Pidgin English means to anglophone adolescents.

2. Sociohistorical background ⇫ ¶

The first contacts between the indigenous population and Europeans are attested for 1472, when Portuguese explorers visited the coastal region. After this, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English traders are believed to have visited the region without, however, establishing any permanent settlement. There are reports on the use of a Portuguese-based language for trading purposes between Cameroon natives and European traders, but the beginnings of the English-based Pidgin in the region remain obscure (Menang 2008: 133). The first European settlement was established in 1843–4 by Joseph Merrick. On behalf of the English Baptist Missionary Society, this freed Jamaican slave built a school and a church near Douala (Todd 1982: 6). Between 1850 and 1884 coastal Cameroon was virtually under the control of the British and the spread of an English-based Pidgin seems to have increased considerably. When in July 1884 the region became part of the German Empire, an English-based Pidgin seems to have been so firmly established that it was used between Germans and the indigenous population on the coastal plantations, for administration and evangelization. In 1919, as a consequence of the treaty of Versailles, the country was partitioned: Four fifths of the country were mandated to France, one fifth to Britain. Each colonial power used its national language as the language of administration and medium of education, but Cameroon Pidgin English seemed to have been “already so firmly implanted that it continued to be used even in parts of the territory that had come under French colonial rule” (Menang 2008: 135). However, Cameroon Pidgin English started to develop two distinguishable, but mutually intelligible variants. In the French-administered part, a more conservative variety with occasional borrowings from French was maintained. In the British part, which was administered from Nigeria, Cameroon Pidgin English developed and spread rapidly, heavily influenced by English phonology and vocabulary.

3. Sociolinguistic situation ⇫ ¶

In 1960, the part of Cameroon mandated by the French gained independence under the name “République du Cameroun”. This part, as a result of a referendum held in the British-administered part, was united with the southern part of anglophone Cameroon as ‘”The Federal Republic of Cameroon/ La République Féderale du Cameroun” in October 1961. In 1972, a unitary, bilingual state was created and the country’s name was changed to “The United Republic of Cameroon”. However, in 1984, the country’s name was changed back to “Republic of Cameroon” and thus, to the anglophones’ dismay, it received the name of the independent francophone part before reunification in 1961. For this and other reasons, there are tensions between the anglophone and francophone parts of the population, as the former feel disadvantaged and discriminated against by the latter. An example of such discrimination is that – despite the official bilingualism of the state – French is still the exclusive language in many official domains (Wolf 2001: 181). As a result individual bilingualism is largely unidirectional: “Proportionally more Anglophones learn French, i.e. have to learn French, than Francophones (have to) learn English” (Wolf 2001: 184).

Consequently, the sociolinguistic status of Cameroon Pidgin English is in part determined by its relationship to the two official languages, French and English, which are clearly seen as languages of overt prestige and education. But Cameroon Pidgin English’s position in the linguistic make-up of the country is also determined by the numerous indigenous languages spoken in the country, which are positively evaluated as indicators of ethnic affiliation and identity. Cameroon Pidgin English takes an intermediate position in every respect: On the one hand, it is clearly less (overtly) prestigious than English and French, but it is definitely more “African” than either of these two colonial languages. On the other hand, however, the absence of ethnic affiliation makes it difficult to associate Cameroon Pidgin English with cultural identity.

Thus variation in Cameroon Pidgin English can best be described in terms of a gradatum, as shown in Figure 1 (adapted from Schröder 2003a: 120), with varying degrees of approximation to Cameroon English and to French on the vertical axis and varying degrees of influence from the indigenous languages on the horizontal axis.¹ Hence, one finds increasing proximity to English or French and thus anglicised or frenchified variants of Cameroon Pidgin English towards the top of the vertical axis and an assimilated Cameroon Pidgin, which usually reflects strong influence of the indigenous languages, towards the bottom. Between these two one finds “broad Cameroon Pidgin English”, which can be seen to constitute the common core.

The nature of this gradatum determines Cameroon Pidgin English’s sociolinguistic status in many ways: It is viewed as a threat to the acquisition and the structure of Cameroon English and to the indigenous languages alike.

4. Phonology² ⇫ ¶

Cameroon Pidgin has a system of six vowel phonemes (see Table 1), for which vowel length is not a distinctive feature.

     In addition, four diphthongs seem to have attained phonemic status recently, which can be illustrated by the following minimal pairs: /ai/: /bai/ ‘buy’ vs. /ba/ ‘bar’; /au/: /kau/ ‘cow’ vs. /ka/ ‘car’; /ɔi/: /nɔis/ ‘noise’ vs. /nɔs/ ‘nurse’; /ia/: /bia/ ‘beer’ vs. /bi/ ‘bee’. A fifth diphthong, /ei/, has also been described, e.g. /dei/ ‘there’ vs. /dai/ ‘die’, but its phonemic status cannot yet be ascertained.

     There are 21 consonant phonemes in Cameroon Pidgin English (see Table 2), which can combine into consonant clusters. Thus, /s/ can precede /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/, and /l/: /spun/ ‘spoon’, /stik/ ‘stick, tree’, /skul/ ‘school’, /smɔl/ ‘small’, /snek/ ‘snake’, /slak/ ‘tired’; /r/ can be preceded by /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/, /f/, as in: /preja/ ‘prayer’, /bred/ ‘bread’, /troki/ ‘tortoise’, /drai/ ‘dry’, /krai/ ‘cry’, /gras/ ‘grass’, /frai/ ‘fry’; and /l/ can be preceded by /p/, /b/, /k/, /g/, and /f/, as in /pleja/ ‘player’, /blak/ ‘black’, /klin/ ‘clean’, /glas/ ‘glass’, /flai/ ‘fly’.

Some voiced consonants, such as /d/, /g/, /v/ and /z/, are devoiced in word-final position, in particular when the following word has a voiceless initial consonant. Thus, whereas /bed/ ‘bed’, /gud/ ‘good’ and /bad/ ‘bad’ – when used in isolation – are usually pronounced with a voiced final consonant, which is devoiced only sporadically, this consonant is systematically devoiced in compounds such as /bet pan/ ‘bed pan’, /gut tɔk/ ‘good talk’ and /bat tiŋ/ ‘bad thing’. For some lexemes, the devoiced variant has become lexicalized, e.g. /muf/ ‘move’.

     In addition to the consonants listed in Table 2, Cameroon Pidgin English also displays prenasalized obstruents, which usually occur in borrowings from indigenous Cameroonian languages. Examples of this are: /^mb/ as in /^mboma/ ‘snake’, /^ŋg/ as in /^ŋgmbi/ ‘spirit’, /ⁿs/ as in /ⁿsɔ/ ‘Nso’ (a place name and language), /^ŋk/ as in /^ŋkanda/ ‘skin’.

     The question whether Cameroon Pidgin English is a tone language or not remains unresolved. “Research findings at this stage unfortunately do not permit one to provide a conclusive answer to the question” (Menang 2008: 147). However, most studies agree that tone can make a difference in meaning and hence we find minimal pairs such as the following ones: /bábà/ ‘barber’ vs. /bàbá/ ‘father; /pópò/ ‘proper’ vs. /pòpó/ ‘pawpaw’ (see also Sala 2010).

     Although serious attempts have been made to codify Cameroon Pidgin English orthography, several spelling conventions still exist side by side. French and English being the main languages in which literacy is taught in Cameroon, competing French- as well as English-based orthographies can be found, some of which are highly inconsistent.

5. Noun phrase ⇫ ¶

Cameroon Pidgin English nouns are invariable, i.e. they do not inflect for number or gender. Natural gender can be expressed by adding man ‘male’ or wuman ‘female’ to a noun: man got ‘billy goat’ vs. wuman got ‘nanny goat’ or wuman pikin ‘girl’ vs. man pikin ‘boy’. The plural is usually expressed by postposing the 3pl pronoun dem, which functions as a plural marker: man ‘man’ vs. man dem ‘men’. Plurality may also be marked through preceding numerals as in wan buk ‘a/one book’ vs. tu buk ‘two books’, although most acrolectal speakers would probably prefer a phrase such as tu buk dem and may possibly even use the Standard English plural marker -s. The same is true for generic nouns, which are also marked for plural as in:

(1)       Cat      dem     di         miau.

            Cat      PL       IPFV   meow

            ‘Cats meow.’

There is a definite article di, e.g. di pikin ‘the child’, and an indefinite article, which is identical to the numeral ‘one’: wan pikin ‘one/a child’. With adnominal demonstratives, there is a proximal–distal contrast: dis man ‘this man’ vs. dat man ‘that man’ and the same holds for pronominal demonstratives:

(2)     a.    A              bin       si         dat          wan.   

                1SG.SBJ PST     see       DEM      one

                ‘I have seen that (one).’

         b.    A              bin    si       dis            wan.

                1SG.SBJ PST  see    DEM       one

                ‘I have seen this (one).’

With regard to possessive constructions, there are adnominal possessives, which precede the noun (yu pikin ‘your (sg.) child’), and pronominal possessives, which consist of an adnominal possessive followed by on ‘own’ as in:

(3)       Dis      cat       na        ma                on.

            DEM   cat       COP    1SG.POSS   own

            ‘This cat is mine.’

The full paradigm of the adnominal possessives is given in Table 3. In possessor noun phrases there is usually an agreement or cross-referencing person-form on the head, as in:

(4)  a.  Na       Joseph       i                         haus.

            COP    Joseph       3SG.POSS        house

            ‘It is Joseph’s house.’ (lit. ‘It is Joseph his house.’)

But one may also find simple juxtaposition of possessor and possessum, without marking of the possessor:

       b.  Na       Mary   haus.

            COP    Mary   house

            ‘It’s Mary’s house.’

Adjectives generally precede the noun and are invariable, both in attributive function, as in ol man ‘old man’, ol wuman ‘old woman’, and in predicative complements, as in:

(5)       I                    ol.

            3SG.SBJ      be.old

            ‘He/she is old.’

Adjectives are not marked morphologically in comparative or superlative constructions:

(6)       Douala       big              pas             Yaoundé.

            Douala       be.big         surpass      Yaoundé

            ‘Doula is bigger than Yaoundé.’

(7)       Dat        man    big       pas                ol.

            DEM     man    big       surpass        all

            ‘That man is the tallest/biggest one.’

Cameroon Pidgin English has two sets of personal pronouns, subject and object pronouns, although these are almost identical and differ in form only in the 1sg and 3sg. The dependent form -im (or -am) is primarily – though not exclusively – used for inanimate and non-human referents, while (y)i usually refers to human objects:

(8)       A              laik-am.

            1SG.SBJ like-3SG.OBL

            ‘I like it.’

(9)       A                bin    si         (y)i.

            1SG.SBJ    PST  see       3SG.OBL

            ‘I saw her/him.’

There is also a set of reflexive pronouns, which may also be used for emphasis:

(10)     A                go        slip        misef               di                  hol         de.

            1SG.SBJ    FUT    sleep      1SG.REFL     ART.DEF    whole    day

            ‘I will sleep the whole day.’

The 3pl pronoun dem may also be used in an associative plural construction:

(11)     Eric     dem                 go     fo         Yaoundé.

            Eric     3PL.SBJ         go     for       Yaoundé

            ‘Eric and his people/his family went to Yaoundé.’

6. Verb phrase ⇫ ¶

Cameroon Pidgin English exhibits an inventory of four distinct preverbal markers of tense and aspect: go, bin, di, and don, with its negated form neba. Preverbal go and bin function as tense markers, indicating future (posterior) and past (anterior) time reference respectively.

(12)     I               go        rait           mi                 leta.

            3SG.SBJ FUT    write        1SG.OBJ     letter

            ‘He/she will write me a letter.’

(13)     I               bin       rait        leta.

            3SG.SBJ PST     write     leta

            ‘He/she wrote a letter.’

The unmarked verb form may carry a past meaning for action verbs and a present meaning for state verbs. If action verbs are to express a present meaning, they need to be marked for imperfectivity. However, probably due to the influence of English, action verbs are increasingly marked for past tense, as in (13), without however acquiring a ‘past before past’ meaning.

     Di and don (and neba) function as aspect markers. Di seems to be a categorial imperfective marker, which includes the meanings of habituality (also used generically, see (1) above) and progressivity.

(14)     I               di              olweis    rait      leta        dem.

            3SG.SBJ IPFV       always  write   letter     PL

            ‘He/she always writes letters’.

(15)     I               di           rait        leta          dem.

            3SG.SBJ IPFV     write     letter       PL

            ‘He/she is writing letters.’

Don (and its negated form neba) seems to be a perfect marker, which may have perfective as its secondary meaning, although bin may also be used in perfective contexts. (See Schröder 2003b, Schröder 2013+.)

However, the “Perfect of persistent situation” cannot be expressed by don but is instead expressed by a combination of bin and di:

(17)     I               bin       di         kof      fo      wan  awa.

            3SG.SBJ PST     IPFV  caugh for     one   hour

            ‘He/she has been coughing for one hour.’

There is an interesting difference between anglophone and francophone Cameroon Pidgin English when it comes to marking imperfectivity in the past and thus to combine an aspect and a tense marker: While anglophones would simply juxtapose the imperfective marker to the past marker, i.e. bin di as in (18a), francophone speakers of Cameroon Pidgin English would prefer a different construction, i.e. bin bi(n) as in (18b). (See also de Féral 1989: 120–123, Schröder 2013+.)

There is an interplay between the Aktionsart meaning of a verb and its aspectual marking. With many stative verbs, the marking for imperfectivity is redundant or ungrammatical, but some may actually acquire an inceptive or ingressive meaning:

(19)     A                di           smol.

            1SG.SBJ    IPFV     be.small

            ‘I am losing weight.’ (Schröder 2003b: 91)

Cameroon Pidgin English has a number of modal auxiliaries, such as fit (‘can’/ ‘to be able to’), wan (‘to want’), get fo and mostu (‘to have to’/ ‘must’), which are used to express modal meanings such as ability, permission, intention, volition and obligation.

(20)     A                wan     go     fo           ton.           

            1SG.SBJ    want   go     for         town

            ‘I want to/would like to go to town.’ (Bellama et al. 1983: 39)

(21)     A              fit      kari          dis            tebul.

            1SG.SBJ can   carry        DEM       table

            ‘I can carry this table.’ (Bellama et al. 1983: 39)

(22)     Yu            fit           mari         tu           wuman.

            2SG.SBJ can        marry      two        woman

            ‘You can marry two women.’ (Bellama et al. 1983: 39)

(23)     Yu            get       fo           rid          yu                   buk.

            2SG.SBJ must   for         read       2SG.POSS     book

            ‘You have to study.’ (Ayafor 2008: 441)

(24)     Beri     mostu  mari    dis       man.

            Beri     must   marry DEM   man

            ‘Beri must get married to this man.’ (Ayafor 2008: 441)

The invariant verbal negation particle no precedes all verbal markers but follows the personal pronoun or noun in subject position (cf. 25). Indefinite pronouns co-occur with predicate negation, and multiple negation for emphasis is also possible, as seen in (26):

(25)     A                   no           laik-am.

            1SG.SBJ      NEG      like-3SG.OBL

            ‘I don’t like it.’

(26)     No         man    no        laik          mi                 no          smol.

            NEG      man    NEG   like          1SG.OBJ     NEG      small

            ‘Nobody likes me even a little.’ (adapted from Todd 1991: 92)

7. Simple sentences ⇫ ¶

The basic word order in declarative sentences is SVO; both the subject and the object are morphologically unmarked. The most basic sentence pattern is SV, which may be expanded to SVO and SVOO patterns with transitive and ditransitive verbs respectively. In the latter case, Cameroon Pidgin English may exhibit a double-object construction or a construction with prepositional coding. If the ditransitive construction is without prepositional coding, the recipient precedes the theme.

(27)     A              don        tchop.

            1SG.SBJ PRF       eat

            ‘I have eaten.’ (adapted from de Féral 1989: 65)

(28)     A              don        tchop       bif.

            1SG.SBJ PRF       eat           meat

            ‘I have eaten meat.’ (adapted from de Féral 1989: 65)

(29)     A                don        giv            buk        fo      (y)i.

            1SG.SBJ    PRF       give          book      for    3SG.OBJ      

            ‘I have given him/her a book.’             (adapted from de Féral 1989: 65)

(30)     A                don          giv         (y)i              buk.

            1SG.SBJ    PRF         give       3SG.OBJ   book

            ‘I have given him/her a book.’         (adapted from de Féral 1989: 65)

Interrogative sentences frequently do not differ from declarative sentences except in intonation. Thus rising intonation turns the declarative sentence (31) into the interrogative sentence (32):

(31)     Pikin   di         krai.

            child    IPFV   cry

            ‘The child is crying.’

(32)     Pikin   di         krai?

            child    IPFV   cry

            ‘Is the child crying?’ (adapted from Ayafor 2008: 445)

When interrogative phrases or question words are used, these may be placed either sentence-initially or non-initially:

(33)     Weti         wuna            di             du?

            what        2PL.SBJ      IPFV       do

            ‘What are you (pl.) doing?’ (adapted from Bellama et al. 1983: 9)

(34)     Yu            laik   wich       kain       tchop?

            2SG.SBJ like   which    kind      food

            ‘What kind of food do you like?’ (adapted from Bellama et al. 1983: 9)

(35)     David  na        weti?

            David  COP    what

            ‘What is David?’ (Bellama et al. 1983: 7)

The main question words are listed and exemplified in Table 5.

Imperative sentences may be formed with simple verb forms only, or using mek, which is slightly more polite and less face-threatening:

(36) a. Tanap!

            stand.up

            ‘Stand up!’  (Bellama et al. 1983: 36)

       b. Wuna           tanap!

            2PL.SBJ      stand.up

            ‘Stand up!’ (pl.) (Bellama et al. 1983: 37)

(37)     Mek       yu               tchop!

            Make     2SG.SBJ    eat

            ‘Eat!/ You should eat!’ (adapted from Bellama et al. 1983: 37)

8. Complex sentences ⇫ ¶

Relative clauses are introduced by the relative particle we, frequently (but not always) followed by a resumptive pronoun (cf. 39). The relativized element may be a subject or an object.

(38)     man       we          ben      (y)i                biabia

            man       REL      burn   3SG.POSS   beard

            ‘a man who burnt his beard’ (adapted from Todd 1991: 26)

(39)     man     we       i                  di           pas        fo      rot

            man    REL   3SG.SBJ    IPFV     pass      for    road

            ‘the man who is crossing the road’ (adapted from de Féral 1989: 148)

(40)     di                  wuman    we       wi             bin         luk-am

            ART.DEF    woman    REL   1PL.SBJ  PST       look-3SG.OBL

            ‘the woman whom we saw’ (adapted from Todd 1991: 26)

Example (41) shows the use of a resumptive pronoun when the relativized element is the argument of a preposition.

Increasingly, especially in acrolectal varieties influenced by English, we find relative constructions in which the role of the head noun is marked by a gap (example 42) as well as constructions with a zero relativizer (example 43):

(43)     Yu              bin       no       dat         gel     Ø           dem          bin       kol    se             Pauline?

            2SG.SBJ    PST     know  DEM     girl    REL      3PL.SBJ  PST     call    COMP    Pauline

            ‘Did you know the girl they (had) called Pauline?’ (adapted from de Féral 1989: 149)

Serial verb constructions are another means of forming complex sentences in Cameroon Pidgin English. These may be directional (example 44), instrumental (example 45), and comparative (see examples 6 and 7 above):

(44)     I               bin       tek         di                naif       komot.

            3SG.SBJ PST     take       ART.DEF knife     come.out

            ‘He/she took the knife away.’ (constructed by native speaker)

(45)     I                 tek     naif       chuk      mi               fo         ay      wit          am.

            3SG.SBJ    take  knife     pierce    1SG.OBJ   for       eye    with       3SG.OBJ

            ‘He/she stabbed me in the eye(s) with a knife.’ (constructed by native speaker)

A serial verb construction with se(i) (‘say’), as in example (46), probably gave rise to a number of types of subordinate clauses introduced with the complementizer se, as in examples (47)–(48).

(47)     Mi,             a               bin      kom       se(i)            mek        dokta        si         mi.

            1SG.OBJ   1SG.SBJ PST    come      COMP       make     doctor      see       1SG.OBJ

            ‘I came here for the doctor to see me.’        (adapted from de Féral 1989: 152)

(48)     Wi              no     get     moni      fosika       se(i)            ma                man    no       get     wok.

            1SG.SBJ    NEG get    money   because   COMP       1SG.POSS   man    NEG   get     work

            ‘We don’t have any money because my husband has no work.’ (adapted from de Féral 1989: 152)

In acrolectal, educated anglophone varieties of Cameroon Pidgin English, causal constructions with fosika plus sei, as in example (48), are increasingly replaced by bikos (‘because’):

(49)     Prais   fo        tomato      i                bin      bi      wan     hondred  bikos

            Price    for       tomato     3SG.SBJ PST    COP one      hundred because

            ren      i                  bin    di           fol        plenti.

            rain     3SG.SBJ    PST  IPFV     fall       plenty

            ‘The price for tomatoes was one hundred because a lot of rain had been falling.’

            (adapted from de Féral 1989: 152) 

9. Reduplication⁴ ⇫ ¶

Reduplication is a very productive method of extending Cameroon Pidgin English vocabulary by internal means, although some lexemes seem to exist in a reduplicated form only, e.g. biabia ‘hair/beard’.

Frequently, the reduplicated form indicates emphasis or intensification, e.g. som big-big man ‘a very big/tall man’ or go smol-smol ‘go very slowly’, but it may also be used to express restriction, as in (50):

(50)     I                 di           soso       bon             na          boi-boi,

            3SG.SBJ    IPFV     always  give.birth   COP      boy-boy

            ‘She keeps giving birth to boys only.’ (adapted from Sala 2013+.: 222)

As Sala (2013+: 223) notes, reduplication may also serve to express an idea of distributiveness or one-to-one mapping, i.e. “a situation where individual items in a group of things or persons are correlated to some other thing to express the meaning of ‘X each’ or ‘X by X’”:

(51)     Pe        na        fifti-fifti,

            Pear    COP    fifty-fifty

            ‘Each pear costs fifty (francs).’ (adapted from Sala (2013+: 222)

(52)     Wuna      enta            wan-wan.

            2PL.SBJ  come.in      one-one

            ‘Come in one after the other.’          (adapted from Sala (2013+:  224)

Reduplication may also serve to indicate plurality, as in:

(53)     I               bai         kain-kain     clus        dem.

            3SG.SBJ buy        kind-kind    cloth      PL

            ‘He/she bought several/many kinds of clothes.’ (adapted from Sala (2013+: 221)

10. Lexicon ⇫ ¶

Cameroon Pidgin English being an English-lexifier language, the majority of its lexical items naturally derive from English, but, as Table 6 illustrates, lexemes from other languages – most notably from French and from Cameroonian (and Nigerian) indigenous languages – can also be found.

The number of loanwords from these languages depends on the variety of Cameroon Pidgin English spoken. More French loanwords can be expected in francophone varieties of the language, and the number and type of loanwords from indigenous languages also depend on the educational background of the speaker (see Figure 1). This may also have an influence on the nature and number of English loanwords, as Cameroon Pidgin English words, compounds and phrases are increasingly being replaced by more “English” lexemes in the acrolectal use of the language. Examples are: wuman pikin = gel ‘girl’, dokta ‘medical personnel and hospital’ > dokta ‘doctor’, nes/sista ‘nurse’, (h)ospitu ‘hospital’, fosika se(i) > bikos ‘because’.